Finally finished this piece after months of reworking. Far from perfect, but I’m glad it’s done. Inspired by the amazing Bruno Redondo, Dan Mora, and especially Dexter Soy.
Thoughts on beards in the post-canon world of The Last Binding that didn’t fit in my already hideously long porn novella:
My wife really wanted Alan and Jack living together, and so I was determined to make it happen. That said I struggled with it a lot; there’s a very narrow needle to thread there in terms of believability. Obviously there’s a lot of risks in terms of the law, but there’s also less life threatening but still substantial risks in terms of Alan’s career or Jack’s effectiveness at politics, and I didn’t want to just… dismiss that. So we had a lot of discussions about it.
Conclusion we came to: the solution lies in both taking refuge in Jack’s audacity and Alan’s class solidarity. Jack is already known for being a Liberal that crosses class lines and acts as a rake to enable women’s sexual freedom. And Alan has no reason not to reach out to the staff in the Mayfair house (and probably at Cheetham). It would be a good way to vet that Jack isn’t fucking with him about being a Liberal who tries to give away his money, if nothing else: does he pay a fair wage? Above market rate? Who does he hire? Who does he fire? When do people get pensions? What are their days off like? Is he foul-tempered in a way that they find intimidating, or are they all like Makepeace, who canonically doesn’t take him seriously in the slightest? Plus class solidarity requires Alan to acknowledge that the work servants do is worth doing, just not necessarily for the people they’re doing it for. His blind mother could use a valet significantly more than Jack could, for example, so although Alan doesn’t like having staff waiting on him, I don’t think he could maintain an air of “fuck off, your work is dumb” for long without stepping on someone’s toes, especially if Jack is a good employer. (Plus, again, the man is trying to engage in class solidarity, which is hard to do if you earnestly think someone’s work has no dignity.)
Which is all to say: people don’t think Alan is sleeping with Jack, they think Alan is sleeping with one of Jack’s maids, and Jack is enabling the affair by letting them fuck under his roof. He’s an insane Liberal! Alan goes in and out of the servant’s doors all the time not because it’s a good way to avoid being seen or because Jack is scared of being found out, but because he wants to visit some of his friends, who will go out of their way to vouch for him! There’s a good setup here for a lavender marriage to get Alan’s mother off his back, assuming that Jack does things like hire women who don’t want to get married for Reasons, and we might as well assume that given the bits of evidence we see of how Jack’s politics influence his hiring practices in the books.
All of which led to my wife and I discussing the situation with Robin, Edwin, and Adelaide. I think Edwin is the closest any of the characters gets to living “out”. Big fucking confirmed bachelor energy. That said, he’s rich and useful in a way that makes him difficult to touch, and there’s weird… side effects to him being friends with Adelaide along with Robin.
Which is to say people definitely think that Robin is a wife guy who’s getting cucked by Edwin. Edwin and Adelaide are alone together all the time! They exchange letters! They travel together! When Robin and Adelaide go places, Edwin is always tagging along! They share private jokes that are at Robin’s expense! Does Robin not see what’s happening??? Does he just not care??? Does he like it!?!?!?He always talks like he thinks both Edwin and Adelaide are the best thing since sliced bread. Maybe they’re having scandalous threesomes??
It should also be noted that, yes, WWI is going to suck for these characters, but holy shit are they ever all built for the 20s. They are going to have a fantastic time. They’re clever and open minded and will be well established socially, politically, and monetarily, can host salons and parties and encourage people towards all kinds of scandalous things in their fancy, slightly magical seeming homes. Spinet House is going to be one of the most Happening places in London among a certain kind of person in the 20s, is what I’m saying. It’s going to be a riot and I do not have the historical chops or time to write that fic but I want it, dammit.
“I would write you into immortality. I would trap you in ink and wear the pages next to my skin until they fell apart. Kiss me until I know you. Kiss me until you know me, unmake me, and love me anyway.”
god, these two. the Ridiculously Broad-Shouldered Boys
Even though we don't see as much of a one-on-one relationship between them as the others, I think there’s something about Jack that Robin implicitly understands, even from the beginning
Robin meets him and decides “okay yeah, he’s a dick,” but he still arrives at a surprising amount of sympathy for someone he’s met once and who did not make a good first impression. Robin's uncomfortable with the Penhallick table gossip about him, enough that he’s still chewing over it with annoyance even after dinner
AND it sticks with him enough that Robin brings it up again later with Edwin and asks if Elsie's death/losing his magic is why Jack is Like That. Throughout the evening, this new information follows Robin from scene to scene
Then by the end of AML, after Robin is really hurt by magic—not just physically but emotionally—and considers walking away from it altogether, he starts thinking about Jack again. Robin correctly sees beneath his exterior, describing Jack as “even more full of sharp edges than Edwin” and attributing this to tragedy
It’s worth noting: Robin is dressed in mourning through all this
For all that Robin is outwardly a Very Good Person, what I love about him is that he is often quite irritable in his inner monologue and impatient with others. He just chooses not to voice it. He and Maud are both very aware that goodness is not an innate quality—it is a choice. Inside, both Blyths know they have the same capacity for cruelty as anyone, as their parents, as all people. They’re just choosing to act otherwise
But I wouldn’t be surprised if it crossed Robin’s mind, sitting in his mourning clothes a month after an abrupt death that certainly upended his life unexpectedly, even if it didn't emotionally devastate him. If he listened to the dinner-table gossip about the Alstons and thought, “Thank God. Thank God it was my parents, not Maud,” and wondered who he'd be now if this recent experience with death had been more gutting
Robin and Jack as mirrors of each other.
Robin seeing Jack's tragedy and feeling relief that his own recent brush with sudden death didn't upend his world the same way.
Maud being the same age that Elsie was when she died.
Jack instinctively stepping in to fill Robin's brother role when Maud's away from Robin.
Jack being coaxed back to himself—first and foremost—by Robin's sister, so like his own.
There's a reason why Robin claims Jack as family when making blood oath with his land.
Jack and Edwin who went from childhood friends to spiteful toxic lovers, to bitter exes, to acquaintances of convenience, to amicable friends, to… family. To hugging each other goodbye at the ends of weekends visiting the others home with their respective loves of their lives, to exchanging Christmas gifts and giggling over childhood inside jokes when they drink a little too much. To sharing their adoration for the girl they’ve both come to see as a sister, as endearingly exhausting as she is. To worrying about eachother health, reminding the others he’s getting to that age that his father started having trouble with his back. Edwin watching the ice over Jacks heart slowly melt away and reveal the young Jack Edwin once knew, seeing Jack cup Alan’s cheeks in his hand and beam down at him like he hung the stars. Jack watching Edwin become something much brighter, happier, more loved and more bold than he’d ever known him before with every day that passes, and he spends a little more time being so thoroughly loved and appreciated by his new family. Their growth is so special to me <3
I love that a power unbound beckoned me like “hello I am the kinky sex and animosity book”
and then it was like “SURPRISE!! this is the tenderness and recovery book!! what if you stop running from your pain, and what if you didn't cut yourself off from the world or detach, and what if you let go of the things you became to survive and started to live again. what if you let yourself be cared for and loved, and what if you let yourself be vulnerable, and what if you let yourself belong. what if your pain was finally known so that it could rest. what if you leaned on someone instead of shouldering everything alone. what if you built something new out of everything you've lost. and also what if there was kinky sex.”
another reason jack and alan didn't fuck on the lyric is that jack force fed alan his entire bottle of lube when he was unconscious and didn't have any more
(meanwhile there’s alan, waking up on the floor and a beautiful man is pointing a gun at him and his mouth inexplicably tastes like olive oil and he’s gotta be like “okay either a microaggression happened... or the ancestors are speaking to me and they want me to fuck this man.”)
Third Leyendecker inspired piece for @fahye's The Last Binding trilogy, the other two can be found here and here. To express the overbrimming joy the last book gave me and draw some more hats.
love that it’s canon that robin hands over edwin to jack like “babe hold my beer” before starting the bar fight of the century that results in the british magic system being completely reconstructed
My second poster for @fahye‘s A Restless Truth with all the glitzy glamour, chaos and magic (both the real kind and the flashy stage show kind) from the book, and historic White Star Line playing cards I found online, was such a blast working on this!
kianamaiart
turnnoffyourmind
annaxmalina
titsay
